Spring brings Bluebells and Trolls

It’s been so glorious here for the past few days that I just thought I’d share a few more photos with you. 

Yesterday Terri Windling and I walked up to the wood behind her house. She is lucky enough to have a garden that leads straight in to a wood and then on to a tor-ish sort of hill - one of the two hills that overlook our village. 

I’ve been on to this particular hill many times but I’ve never approached it from Terri’s garden before. What a magical experience - crossing a little stream, clambering up a steep (really steep) pathway and then coming out into mature forest of oak and beech with the ground below the trees covered in Bluebells and other wild flowers. I know that many or even most of you reading this will never have had the chance to experience the smell of a field of bluebells on a sunny day. The sweet, heady smell is truly intoxicating and the colour is the most illusive blue-y purple. Anyway - it was quite wonderful. 

We came across this little troll girl enjoying the bluebells as well. Both she and Tilly the dog are looking at something, but neither Terri nor I could see what it was. No orbs this time as far as I could tell.  

Today I drove over the moor and came across field after field of bluebells. The weather has been so cold this spring that the bluebells have held on much, much longer than usual. I think they’ll be at their peak this weekend. Every once in a while you can spot white bluebells. They are few and far between and I never see more than a few in any one field I’m walking in. I choose to believe that these are very special indeed. 

And lambs. There are LOTS of lambs on the moor and since they are born slightly later than the ones on lower ground, they are still quite young and SO sweet. Well - see for yourselves. 

And last of all, there’s Buster. I had to show you these photos because he looks like a very happy little vampire cat. He IS out all night - maybe he IS a vampire cat. I never question him closely on his comings and goings. He’s very private about it all.

Just One More Walk Around the Garden

It’s taken me a while to fully come back after being in Michigan for three weeks. I always feel as though I’ve left part of me still hovering somewhere over the Atlantic, looking for land  - or perhaps looking for whales or pirates. Since it’s a part of me that I can’t consciously seem to communicate with, I have no idea really.

Anyway  - I’m home (all of me) and trying to work again, which hasn’t been very successful yet. It’s not that I don’t want to  - it’s just that I don’t want to – if you see what I mean. It rained almost every day last week and was far too cold for this time of year. That made me just want to curl up and read (which I did) and this week, it’s absolutely beautiful  - sunny and warm(ish) and bucolic , with birds singing and lambs baa-ing and the sounds of the neighbors, trimming their weeds or cutting down trees or what ever that noise is that I don’t really want to go and investigate, but that isn’t terribly conducive to work either.

Elfie is just SO happy, lying in the sun and occasionally getting up to ask me if it’s time for a walk  - and Buster is fast asleep, also in the sun, having spent a very productive night catching mice and bunnies and squirrels and anything that moves slowly enough to catch.

I went into the village this morning and it was still early enough to see dew on the grasses and small flowers in the churchyard. The sun just caught the dewdrops and everything glistened.

When I came home  -after discovering that our car was extremely ill and needed to stay at the garage in the village  - I walked in our garden and found these two faery girls just sitting in the trees, obviously looking at something (or things). I thought it was probably squirrels. I took their photo a few times and discovered, when I downloaded the photos, that they must have been looking at colored orbs floating around the garden. You can see them in the second photo. I don’t know why one of them looks so surprised  - they must see them all the time. 

Anyway  - it’s good to be home in the sunshine. I might even be moved to work a bit later  - but first, just one more walk around the garden and another cup of tea. 

Happy May Day. Happy Beltane.

Toby, Sarah and I are spending a week or so in Northern Michigan with my mother (Toby’s grandmother) . I left Brian at home on Dartmoor, looking after Buster and Elfie and having some well deserved time by himself. I expect to see lots of new paintings when I get back home next week -either that or a very messy house and lots of left over cheese in the fridge. Maybe if I’m lucky it will be paintings AND cheese. I’ll have to wait and see.

My mother’s garden is looking very Spring-like, with lots of flowers out and trees coming into blossom as well. Things have been a bit confused here because the weather has been first unseasonably hot and then unseasonably cold. The poor flowers don’t quite know what to do. But - May Day is here and the sun is shining so all is well in the garden. I was taking an early morning walk and came across this little fellow inspecting the flowers. I don’t know if he has an official job looking after them or if he’s just out enjoying Spring as well. I have the feeling that he’s just having a poke around the garden. 

I followed him over to the sculpture of the sleeping dragon that sleeps in its own little paved circle and watched while the little fellow first inspected it, then poked it with a stick and finally figured out that it wasn’t going to wake up and eat him. I left him having a ride on its back. I expect he will go back to his friends and tell them how he poked a dragon and then rode on its back. I’m pretty sure he won’t mention the fact that the dragon is bronze and not much of a threat.

I was very glad to see that the faery creatures that live here are willing to come out so that I can see them and record them for you. I’ll see if I can find a few more to photograph in the next few days. 

We wish you all a very happy May Day. I’m going back out to the garden now. I can hear a woodpecker and I’ve just seen a duck so I have the feeling that its going to get busy out there today.